This invention relates to a bagging machine such as used for bagging and the like and more particularly to the convertibility of the machine for bagging into different sized bags.
Bagging machines as contemplated by the present invention are used primarily (but not exclusively) for storage of farm crop materials. A major application is the storage of silage and other materials used for feeding farm animals. In many parts of the country, grass does not grow during the months from late fall to early spring and animal feed such as silage is harvested and stored during the summer and fall months and then removed piece meal for feeding cattle, e.g., dairy cows.
The bagging process requires that the crop material be tightly compressed in a heavy non-elastic bag so that there is minimal air and thus oxygen that is retained in the bag that can cause the crop to spoil during storage.
When it is necessary to remove the material from the bag for feeding the farm animals, one end of the bag is opened and then day by day a desired portion of the material is removed from the opened bag end and fed to the farm animals. Because the bag is now opened, the end of the material in the bag is exposed to the atmosphere/air (oxygen) and if allowed to be exposed for any length of time, the material in that end of the bag will spoil.
It has been learned that the way to avoid spoilage is to remove a sufficient depth of the material each day so that the material previously adjacent the opened end and which has been exposed to air is removed prior to spoilage and the fermenting or spoiling process starts anew with the newly exposed end portion of the material. The newly exposed material will be removed the following day before spoilage can take place and so on.
Of course that material which is removed needs to be fed to and eaten by the animals and it is the amount of material required for feeding the animals that dictates the amount of feed that is to be removed from the storage bag. It follows that the bag opening (diameter) is desirably matched to the amount of daily feed required. Thus, if it is determined that the air will penetrate into the material at the opened end of up to 10 inches and therefore at least 10 inches depth of material is desirably removed daily, and it is determined that the daily feed required for feeding the animals is one ton of that material, then the diameter of the bag needs to be no greater than that which will result in the daily removal of 10 inches depth of material without exceeding a ton of the material.
Bag sizes (diameter) typically are provided in one foot increments between six and twelve feet in diameter. Prior bagging machines when manufactured were provided with tunnels sized to fit a particular bag size. Thus, if a dairyman has a dairy herd that requires daily feeding of one ton of material, he determined the size of the bag he needed and accordingly acquired a bagging machine that accommodated that bag size.
A problem that occurs is that a farmer/dairyman may have a requirement for more than one bag size. For example, he may want to feed a combination of feed material. He may wish to feed one ton of silage and one and one-half tons of alfalfa which require different bag sizes. In other instances he may want to feed alternating materials having different densities whereby the same one ton of material occupies different volumes. In order to accommodate the different bag sizes, the farmer was previously required to own multiple bagging machines.
The present invention provides the ability to convert the same bagging machine to different bag sizes. In brief, a tunnel may be sized to fit a 10 foot diameter bag size. This diameter bag has a circumference of about 31.4 feet. The tunnel circumference at the rear opening is not typically circular and somewhat wider than it is tall. Nevertheless, the circumference is substantially 31.4 feet and the flexible bag just fits over the tunnel end opening. The material that is first compressed in the tunnel and then forced into the bag substantially fills the entire bag cross section.
To convert the tunnel so as to fit a 9 foot bag, the circumference of the tunnel end opening needs to be about 28.3 feet in circumference. To achieve this, the approximate upper half or top of the tunnel is a bolt on section. By unbolting the upper half and replacing it with a tunnel top that has the same configuration in the horizontal plane but shorter in height, the overall circumference of the tunnel end opening is reduced. The replacement top is designed to fit directly onto the tunnel bottom and thus configured in that respect like the prior 10 foot tunnel top. The outer perimeter of the inverted U-shaped upper half of the mouth of the end opening is reduced by the difference in circumference between a 10 foot bag opening and a 9 foot bag opening or substantially by about 3.1 feet. Now a 9 foot bag will precisely fit the new tunnel configuration.
The invention and the benefits of the invention will be more fully appreciated upon reference to the following detailed description having reference to the accompanying drawings.